Teaching My Friends and Family Signs

Since learning S.E.E. signing isn't as much fun by myself as it is with others, I thought teaching my friends would be a good idea. Plus, when I told them that was my Senior Project, they asked what certain words were.

Some signs are quite inappropriate such as: horny (the "hunger" sign repeated), poop (one of my friends taught me that), and MANY others. One day, during S.E.E. signing class, we were learning the sign for "hunger." My classmates and I are such weirdos and ask countless questions. One student, I can't remember who because we learned that sign quite a while ago, asked something along the lines of "What happens if we want to say we're really hungry? Do we sign "hunger" more than once?" And Lois, my teacher, laughs because that means "horny."

Haha, and then another day at school, one of my friends taught me the sign for "poop." At first I was confused but then she fingered spelled the word and I understood. It was so great. The next time I had class, I told my classmates my friends taught me the sign for "poop." Then, I think I was looking at this concert hall and I said "whoa! It's huge!" My classmate thought I was talking about "poop" still. When my teacher came back to the classroom, I signed to her "huge poop" and she laughed. Signing is SO much fun!

I also have an almost 3 year old sister named Mia who I've taught a few signs. She remembers the sign for milk. If only I signed a bit more to her, I think she could pick up a lot more signs.

One of my friends at my high school is obsessed with buses. I taught her the sign "school bus."

During one class session, I have no idea why, but I taught the word "drug" to the people that were sitting at my table. I think it just popped in my head and I thought it would be interesting to teach another sign to some more people.

If only I could find someone who is close to me or lives close to me, or even just is easy to communicate with (online like Facebook, or through texting, or meeting in person), I think I could enhance my skills so much more with someone who knows and understand the language for me to practice with.

Pictures!

A couple weeks ago I took pictures of the class. (Of course I asked for permission!)

I just wanted to show the setting and different ways of how we learn signs.

Here are the pictures!

Lois stands @ the front of the class and shows us the signs as we also look at the signs in our  packets.

Lois is showing the class, I believe, the sign for grass!

She speaks to both sides of the room so that we can see the sign at different angles. She's great!

We're not a very HUGE class, but we're like a family :) The room is small too, haha.

Looks like Lois is signing the letter "G."

She may be thinking of what the sign may be like. Lois always gives us ways to remember the signs.
She is signing the letter "E."

Leanna (my sister) and her friend (Dexyra) both take the class with me.
They're both only 10! I think they're the youngest in the class.

I wanted to show different angles of the classroom.

Here's Chiquita and Nathan in a signing group.
Sometimes we go in the other room.
This time we were practicing finger spelling and rhyming.

Usually there's a group of four: two on one side and two on the other.

I hope that in the near future, I will either film myself signing or have some videos going of mini lessons in class.

So many signs!!

It's the second class of my Signing Exact English class and I feel like it went by so quickly.  At first it was so difficult to learn signs because I didn't know any. Now that I know many more signs and I know the head of the family groups, it is much easier to learn new signs. Head of the family group means the main sign (that it usually does not have a letter with it) that other signs related to its concept are derived from. For example, I believe the main sign for vehicle is car. Other vehicles like jeep, bus, taxi, truck, and some others are like a car, just the letters are changed to match the word of the sign.

Lately, I've been trying to come into contact with people who sign or are deaf. I think it'd be quite interesting to immerse myself into the deaf culture. Lois, my S.E.E signing teacher, just finished 3 lessons on deaf culture with the behind the scenes and what goes on from birth until later on. Some of the things she explained made me stare in wonder of how deaf kids go through life.

Since my last entry, the 2nd class started, but it's been a lot easier (as I typed about above). I've also been watching this drama show on ABCFamily entitled Switched at Birth. In a nutshell, two girls find out they were switched at birth. One family is a middle class Latino family who raised Daphne who is almost completely deaf. Now that I think about it, Regina (the mother) and Regina’s mother were one of the families that learned sign and tried to make Daphne’s life easier. The other family, the Kennishes, raised Bay, who looked nothing the rest of her relatives. They were of high class. The show has lots of signing, but they  mainly sign ASL. With the captions and the signs AND the mouthing of words it has been extremely easy to learn signs. Although, ASL is much more conceptual. S.E.E. signing doesn’t conform to the slang of English. For example “break” can be used in many different ways. There’s “break in,” “break out,” “break off” and much more. Going back to Lois’ mini lectures on deaf culture, it is so hard for a deaf child to learn words as a hearing child would because they don’t hear it or even see it.

I am so glad I am taking these classes and learning about a world I’ve never been a part of. I wish I knew someone who was deaf. I think now, I would appreciate them much more than I would have before this class. As far as signing goes, I think I’m one of the students that remember a lot of signs. I’ve kept all the paper on the signs we learned and which words they belong to. Sometimes I think of what signs belong to words that people say and sign it inside my head. I attempt signing to songs, but that’s impossible… It’s so fast and I haven’t signed enough just yet. Even though this project is for school, I think I’ll continue pursuing it and learn more and more as the years go by.

I do hope to meet with deaf people. The difficulties they have are unbelievable. To communicate with someone using only my hands, I think, will definitely be a challenge, but a GREAT way to practice. I hope to email my mentor and teacher to set up meetings with those hard-of-hearing people. I can’t wait.